Live: AIDS Wolf Lead A Raucous, Ripped-Pantyhose-Heavy Noise-Rock Spectacular At Death By Audio

January 18, 2011

Saturday night, Williamsburg’s Death by Audio witnessed “Throat Razor,” a noise showcase put together by Throat, a collective of five recent female RISD grads. The goal was to raise funds for a planned non-profit art co-op like one they admired back in Providence, “an unjuried space where any dreamer with vision could display their pieces, without barriers.” Montreal’s AIDS Wolf headlined; in addition to being experimental noise-rock stalwarts with over a dozen releases to their credit, they’re visual artists themselves: Core members Chloe Lum and Yannick Desranleau also collaborate as Seripop, a prolific printmaking and installation duo, with international acclaim.

Miami growler Rat Bastard was another highlight; eight years ago, he founded the sprawling International Noise Conference with the motto “No droning, no laptops.” (Here’s a fascinating Vice interview with this character.) On the other end of the noise spectrum, Shawn Greenlee performed earlier in the evening with a novel approach: He uses a camera that interprets drawings in a notebook as sounds, which he then manipulates live through a laptop and various other effects devices wired into the mix. Photos of all of the above, plus guys in ripped pantyhose, cat-meowing, and “Mongolian sausage”-chanting, below:

Shawn Greenlee

The vocalist from Detroit's Holy Sheet opened their set by meowing like a cat (with a reprise halfway through)

He closed the set by chanting, "Mongolian sausage"

Humanbeast featured a lot of performative writhing

Lipstick on the shoe

Shoe on the face

At some point, the guy on the right took off all his clothes except for these ripped pantyhose, and tied his ankles together with rubber tubing